The Well of Saint Clare

Ch. 4: The Loaves of Black Bread

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Tu tibi divitias stolidissime congeris amplas,

Negasque micam pauperi;

Advenit ecce dies qua saevis ignibus ardens

Rogabis aquae guttulam.[1]

(Navis stultifera, Sebastian Brandt, 1507, fol, xix.)

[Footnote 1: "You heap up in your folly ample riches for yourself, and

refuse a crumb of bread to the poor man; lo! the day is at hand when

burning in cruel flames, you shall beg for a drop of water."--Ship of

Fools.]

-

In those days Nicolas Nerli was a banker in the noble city of Florence.

Tierce was no sooner sounded than he was at his desk, and at nones he

was seated there still, poring all day long over the figures he wrote in

his table-books. He lent money to the Emperor and to the Pope. And if he

did not lend to the Devil, it was only because he was afraid of bad

debts with him they call the Wily One, and who is full of cunning and

trickery. Nicolas Nerli was bold and unscrupulous; he had won great

riches and robbed many folks of their own. Wherefore he was highly

honoured in the city of Florence. He dwelt in a Palace where the light

of God's day entered only by narrow windows; and this was a wise

precaution, for the rich man's house must be a castle, and they who

possess much wealth do well to defend by force what they have gotten by

cunning.

Accordingly the windows were guarded with bars and the doors with

chains. Outside, the walls were painted in fresco by clever craftsmen,

who had depicted thereon the Virtues under the likeness of women, the

Patriarchs, the Prophets and the Kings of Israel. Tapestries hung in the

rooms within, displaying the histories of Alexander and Tristram, as

they are told us in legends. Nicolas Nerli set all the city talking of

his wealth by the pious foundations he established. He had raised an

Hospital beyond the walls, the frieze of which, carved and painted,

represented the most honourable actions of his own life; in gratitude

for the sums of money he had given towards the completion of Santa Maria

Novella, his portrait was suspended in the choir of that Church. In it

he was shown kneeling, with praying hands, at the feet of the Blessed

Virgin, easily recognizable by his cap of red worsted, his furred hood,

his yellow face swimming in fatness and his little keen eyes. His good

wife, Monna Bismantova, a worthy-looking woman with a mournful air, and

seeming as though no man could ever have taken aught of pleasure with

her, was on the other side of the Virgin in the humble attitude of

supplication. Nicolas Nerli was one of the chiefest citizens of the

Republic; seeing he had never spoken against the laws, and because he

had never regarded the poor nor such folk as the great and powerful

condemn to fine and exile, nothing had lowered in the estimation of the

Magistrates the high repute he had won in their eyes by reason of his

great riches.

Returning one winter evening later than usual to his Palace, he was

surrounded on the threshold by a band of half-naked mendicants who held

out their hands and asked alms.

He repulsed them with hard words. But hunger making them as fierce and

bold as wolves, they formed a circle round him, and begged him for bread

in hoarse, lamentable voices. He was just stooping to pick up stones to

throw at them when he saw one of his serving-men coming, carrying on his

head a basketful of loaves of black bread, intended for the stablemen,

kitchen helpers and gardeners.

He signed to the pantler to approach, and diving both hands into the

basket, tossed the loaves to the starving wretches. Then entering the

house, he went to bed and fell asleep. In the night, he was smitten

with apoplexy and died so suddenly he believed himself still in his bed

when he saw, in a place "as dark as Erebus," St. Michael the Archangel

shining in the brightness that issued from his own presence.

Balance in hand, the Archangel was engaged in filling the scales.

Recognizing in the scale that hung lowest certain jewels belonging to

widow women that he had in pledge, a great heap of clippings from pieces

he had filched dishonestly, and sundry very fine gold coins which were

unique and which he had acquired by usury or fraud, Nicolas Nerli

comprehended it was his own life, now come to an end, that St. Michael

was at that instant weighing before his eyes.

"Good Sir!" he said, "good St. Michael! if you put in the one scale all

the lucre I have gotten in my life, set in the other, if it please you,

the noble foundations whereby I have so splendidly shown my piety.

Forget not the Duomo of Santa Maria Novella, to which I contributed a

good third; nor my Hospital beyond the walls, that I built entirely out

of my own pocket."

"Never fear, Nicolas Nerli," answered the Archangel; "I will forget

nothing."

And with his own heavenly hands he set in the lighter scale the Duomo of

Santa Maria Novella and the Hospital with its frieze all carved and

painted. But the scale did not drop an inch.

At this the Banker was sorely disquieted.

"Good St. Michael! think again. You have not put this side of the

balance my fine holy-water stoup I gave to San Giovanni, nor the pulpit

in Sant' Andrea, where the baptism of Our Lord Jesus Christ is depicted

life-size. The artist charged me a pretty penny for it."

The Archangel put both pulpit and stoup atop of the Hospital in the

scale, but still it never stirred. Nicolas Nerli began to feel a cold

sweat bathing his brow.

"Good Sir! dear Archangel!" he asked, "are you quite certain your

balances are true?"

St. Michael replied, smiling, that they were of a different pattern from

the balances the brokers of Paris use and the money-changers of Venice,

and were precisely accurate.

"What!" sighed Nicolas Nerli, his face as white as chalk. "Duomo,

pulpit, basin, Hospital with all its beds, do they weigh no more than a

bit of straw, a pinch of down from a bird's breast?"

"See for yourself, Nicolas!" said the Archangel; "so far the weight of

your iniquities much outweighs the light load of your good works."

"Then I must go to Hell," cried the Florentine; and his teeth chattered

with horror.

"Patience, Nicolas Nerli," returned the Weigher of Souls, "patience! we

are not done yet. There is something left."

So saying, the Blessed St. Michael took the loaves of black bread the

rich man had tossed the night before to the poor beggars. He laid them

in the scale containing the good works, which instantly fell, while the

other rose, and the two scales remained level. The beam dropped neither

to right nor left, and the needle marked the exact equality of the two

loads.

The Banker could not believe his eyes; but the glorious Archangel said

solemnly:

"See, Nicolas Nerli; you are good neither for Heaven nor Hell. Begone!

Go back to Florence! multiply through the city the loaves you gave last

night with your own hand, in the dusk, when no man saw you--and you

shall be saved. It is not enough that Heaven open its doors to the thief

that repented and the harlot that wept. The mercy of God is infinite,

and able to save even a rich man. Do this; multiply the loaves whose

weight you see weighing down my balances. Begone!"

Then Nicholas Nerli awoke in his bed. He resolved to follow faithfully

the counsel of the Archangel, and multiply the bread of the poor, and

so enter into the kingdom of Heaven.

For the three years he spent on earth after his first death, he was very

pitiful to the unfortunate and a great giver of alms.

Literature Network >> Anatole France >> The Well of Saint Clare >> Ch. 4: The Loaves of Black Bread

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